The Dunning-Kruger Effect: Are You Overestimating Your Spoken English?

Many professionals feel confident about their spoken English—yet still face repeated clarifications in conversations. This article explores how the Dunning–Kruger Effect can hide pronunciation gaps and why assessing spoken clarity is essential for effective communication.

Have you ever felt confident about your spoken English—only to notice people asking you to repeat yourself, pausing mid-conversation, or responding with polite nods instead of real engagement?

If yes, you may be experiencing something called the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

What Is the Dunning-Kruger Effect?

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias where people with limited ability in a skill tend to overestimate their competence. Simply put, when we know a little, we often believe we know enough.

When someone lacks expertise, they also lack the ability to accurately judge their own performance. The same gaps that cause mistakes also prevent self-correction.

In language learning, this bias is especially common.

After learning a few rules, phrases, or pronunciation patterns, many learners assume they’ve “got it.” This early confidence feels encouraging—but it can quietly become a barrier to real improvement.

In spoken English, this gap between confidence and reality often goes unnoticed—until communication breaks down.

How This Shows Up in Spoken English

In spoken English, the Dunning-Kruger effect often looks like this:

• “People understand me, so my pronunciation must be fine.”

• “I’ve been speaking English for years—I don’t need practice.”

• “My English is good enough for professional conversations.”

The problem is simple but critical:

Being understood occasionally is not the same as being consistently easy to understand.

Pronunciation and spoken clarity are far more complex skills, and errors in these areas are often hard to self-detect.

And because people are polite, they rarely point out pronunciation issues directly.

On the other end of the spectrum, people with strong language skills often underestimate themselves. Because they are more aware of nuance, tone, and correctness, they may feel they are “not good enough,” even when they are highly effective communicators.

The real danger lies in the first group: confident speakers who are unaware of their blind spots. This gap between perceived and actual clarity becomes especially costly in professional settings.

"The Greatest Enemy of Knowledge is not Ignorance, It is the Illusion of Knowledge" - Stephen Hawking

Where it matters

In today’s global work environment, English has become the default language of collaboration. Meetings span continents, teams are distributed across time zones, and conversations increasingly happen over video calls rather than in person. While written English often gets the spotlight, it is spoken English that carries the real weight in daily interactions—status meetings, brainstorming sessions, client discussions, and informal check-ins.

Yet, spoken English has a unique challenge: we rarely hear ourselves the way others do.

A Real Moment from a Global Team Meeting

I work in a global team setup. One of my colleagues is a highly capable professional. English is not her native language, but she uses it daily at work. During one of our regular status meetings, she confidently said:

“I will measure our progress weekly to ensure we stay aligned with project goals.”

The sentence itself was perfectly fine. The problem was the pronunciation of the word measure.

Instead of pronouncing it as /ˈmɛʒər/, she repeatedly said /ˈmaɪər/. No one in the meeting understood what she meant. Team members politely asked her to repeat herself—once, twice, then multiple times. Each time, she repeated the word in exactly the same way, unaware that the issue lay in a single sound.

Because I had encountered this pronunciation before, I eventually stepped in and pronounced the word correctly. Instantly, the confusion cleared. I could almost feel the collective relief in the virtual room. The meeting moved on.

What stood out to me was not the mispronunciation itself—but the fact that she had no awareness that anything was wrong.

That moment was a clear, real-world example of the Dunning-Kruger effect in spoken English.

It wasn’t a lack of intelligence or effort—just a lack of awareness.

What the Listener Experiences (But Rarely Says) – The other side of conversation

When pronunciation is unclear, the burden silently shifts to the listener.

Listeners must:

• Decode unfamiliar sounds

• Guess meaning from context

• Decide whether to interrupt

• Manage the awkwardness of repeated clarification

This creates listening fatigue. The conversation becomes work. Over time, people may disengage, speak less with that person, or avoid spontaneous discussions altogether. None of this is intentional or personal—it’s a natural response to cognitive overload.

In meetings, this can affect how ideas are perceived. Even strong ideas can lose impact when the audience is busy trying to decode words rather than absorb meaning.

Why This Often Goes Unnoticed

Most professionals receive feedback on their writing—emails are edited, documents reviewed, reports commented on. Spoken English rarely gets the same level of scrutiny.

People hesitate to correct pronunciation because:

• It feels personal

• They don’t want to embarrass the speaker

• Meetings are time-bound

• The meaning eventually becomes clear “enough”

As a result, speakers continue using incorrect pronunciations for years, reinforced by the belief that they are being understood just fine.

This is where the Dunning–Kruger effect quietly thrives.

Why Overconfidence Slows Progress

When speakers believe their pronunciation is already “good enough,” they often stop seeking feedback. Errors go unnoticed, repeated daily, and slowly become habits.

Because communication still mostly works, the speaker assumes there is nothing to fix—until one word disrupts an entire conversation.

This is how small, correctable issues persist for years.

How to Break the Cycle

The good news is that the Dunning-Kruger effect isn’t permanent. It can be addressed with awareness and the right tools.

1. Continuous Assessment: Objective assessments help align confidence with reality. They show what is working—and what needs attention—without personal bias.

2. External Feedback: Others can hear what you can’t. Feedback reveals blind spots that self-evaluation often misses.

3. A Growth Mindset: Spoken English is not something you “finish learning.” Even fluent speakers refine pronunciation, clarity, and delivery over time.

Assess, Don’t Assume

If you believe your spoken English is good, the best thing you can do is verify it.

This is where a structured spoken English assessment helps.

How Speakho helps

Speakho is designed to bridge this exact gap. It helps you assess your spoken English by analyzing real speech and identifying pronunciation and fluency issues at the word level. You don’t need a teacher or a listener to feel uncomfortable correcting you. The feedback is objective, private, and actionable.

By taking a spoken English assessment, you replace assumption with awareness. Instead of wondering whether people understand you—or assuming they do—you get clarity.

No guessing. No assumptions. Just clarity. Assessment is not about judgment—it’s about awareness.

Final Thought

Confidence is important—but accurate confidence is what leads to growth.

Before assuming your spoken English is “good enough,” take a moment to assess it. Sometimes, a single word can change how an entire conversation unfolds.